We’re watching carefully the reported ban on the activities of Iran’s leading reformist political party, Islamic Iran Participation Party (Mosharekat).
Deputy Interior Ministry Solat Mortazavi told the Iranian Students News Agency that all activities of IIPF have been banned and its headquarters have been locked.
Mortazavi implied that the ban was in place before the IIPF announcement that its congress had been called off because of pressure from security forces. (IIPF’s position is that there is no ban, since this would have to come from a judicial decision, only the postponement of the congress.)
2015 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch: The family of journalist Emaddedin Baghi have visited him in prison. Baghi’s wife Fatemeh Kamali said, “Although he became weak, his spirit is very strong.”
1920 GMT: P.S. Fatemeh Karroubi has said that she will file a lawsuit against the Iranian Press Supervisory Board for shutting down Iran Dokht magazine.
1900 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Fatemeh Karroubi, Mehdi Karroubi’s wife, has written an open letter to the Iranian nation after the closure of the magazine Iran Dokht and an attack on her home by plainclothesmen who threw eggs and tomatoes: “I should feel sorry for the country when its Government can’t even tolerate the only press that will critique it.”
2115 GMT: We’ve posted video, originally shown on BBC Persian, of the attack on Tehran University halls of resident on 15 June, three days after the Presidential election.
2100 GMT: Sanctions Follow-up. Earlier today (1555 GMT) I got a bit wound up about an editorial in The Wall Street Journal pushing — I thought dishonestly — for sanctions. Matt Duss follows up by taking apart the editorial’s claim “prominent Iranian dissidents [have] moved from adamant opposition to severe sanctions to hesitant acceptance of the idea”.
2050 GMT: Back to “Dirt and Dust”. Ruhollah Hosseinian, the head of Islamic Revolution party in the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) and a fervent supporter of President Ahmadinejad, has choice words for the opposition in an interview with Khabar Online: “The opponents received a firm response from the people….Before February 11, I have said that on its way, the raging flood of people on the anniversary of Islamic revolution victory will remove any dirt and dust.”
“”Dirt and dust” was Ahmadinejad’s infamous description of his opponents in his “victory” speech the day after the 12 June Presidential election.
More than a month has passed since the detainment of Emadeddin Baghi, writer and researcher on human rights issues, but he is still being kept in solitary confinement in department 240 of Evin Prison without a visitor’s permit. He has no access even to the Holy Qu’ran.
Baghi was detained at home on the day after Ashura on behalf of a general precautionary warrant for alleged abuse of Ayatollah Montazeri’s death; and his crime was declared as “making an interview with Ayatollah Montazeri”, which was released by the BBC [Persian]. This interview had been made two years earlier, even before BBC [Persian] started, and was published by this media only after Montazeri’s death.
So far Emadeddin Baghi has spent four years in prison on several occasions, three years of which under the former government and one year under the government of the current President. In his first imprisonment, the accusations were related to media matters, and in the second imprisonment to his civil society activities in the “Society (Anjoman) To Defend Prisoner’s Rights”, which he founded.
In the second imprisonment from 2007, Baghi suffered from a malady due to adverse prison conditions, being finally transferred to hospital, and he spent the rest of his detention in the prison’s general ward. Doctors trusted by the Iranian Intelligence service had already noticed that keeping him in a closed and stressful room would be dangerous to him.
Today, however, he serves his penalty in solitary confinement without any possibilities [of a change in conditions]. He is also suffering from chronic disc damage. Baghi’s relatives have said that Tehran’s prosecutor met him last week in Evin prison, but even though they asked the prosecutor for information about him, this authority has not replied yet, pointing only to the fact that Baghi will have no visitor’s permit before a further message.
His relatives are convinced of the fact that even if Baghi is accused of making this interview, more than 35 days of interrogations in solitary confinement are not required, especially with regard to the condition of his health. Baghi, who has been summoned to court several times within the past years and always appeared in due time, could have better answered these questions in freedom and under more lawful conditions.
Baghi’s family is concerned about his health and demand a minimum of legal rights like contact by phone, visitor’s permit, leaving solitary confinement and access to books. They say that they informed Tehran’s prosecutor about these demands, but did not receive any answer.
2045 GMT: Taking the Green Out of Iran. I don’t want to say the Government is in any way threatened by the Green movement, but somebody has apparently decided that, when President Ahmadinejad is speaking, the Iranian flag no longer has to be Red, White, and Green:
1620 GMT: All is Well. Really. Ahmad Khatami may have tried to put out the message that Hashemi Rafsanjani and the pro-Ahmadinejad Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi have reconciled, but both Rah-e-Sabz and BBC Persian are claiming that Khatami has been pressing Rafsanjani not to publish his letter of grievance over Yazdi’s allegations of Rafsanjani’s irresponsibility and ambiguity.
1610 GMT: At Tehran Bureau, Setareh Sabety posts a poem reflecting on the executions of two “monarchists” (see 0940 GMT), “They Did Not Hang My Son Today”.
1605 GMT: Where’s Mahmoud? So how does President Ahmadinejad respond to the growing today? Well, with this declaration to officials in Tehran: “They (imperialist powers) seek to dominate energy resources of the Middle East….But the Iranian nation and other nations will not allow them to be successful.”
1600 GMT: Let Mehdi Make This Perfectly Clear. We can no longer keep up with Mehdi Karroubi as he hammers home his attack against the Ahmadinejad Government. We have posted his latest interview, this one with Saham News.
1530 GMT: The Dead and Detained. The Guardian of London has updated its list of those killed and arrested in the post-election crisis. There are now 1259 people, arranged alphabetically by first name.
1525 GMT: All is Well Alert. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami wants everyone to know that Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, who only a few days ago slammed Rafsanjani’s ambiguity, have made up and are now very good friends.
Beyond our smile, the possible significance: Government supporters are signalling to Rafsanjani that they will reduce the pressure on his family if he joins forces with them. Read the rest of this entry »
After a day of some confusion, Mehdi Karroubi’s son Hossein spoke with BBC Persian last night to clarify his father’s statement about the Presidential election, the Ahmadinejad Government, and the Supreme Leader:
0030 GMT: Just a quick note to say that we’ve extended our break. We’ll be back first thing Saturday morning with full updates, including the latest on “the plot against Ahmadinejad”.
1845 GMT: We’re going to catch our breath tonight after the excitement of today. We’ll be back later for a wrap-up; in the meantime, keep sending in information and your analyses.
1820 GMT: Larijani’s Opening? We’ll need to get more on this statement by Ali Larijani, during Friday Prayers in Saveh, southwest of Tehran, but there is a hint in Mehr News that the Speaker of Parliament has extended a hand to different factions when it paraphrases, “Every effort should be made to foster unity in society, and everyone should refrain from divisive actions meant to drive individuals off the political stage.”
The Persian-language report, significantly, devotes most of its attention not to the “unity” statement but to Larijani’s critique of the Government’s economic proposals.
1735 GMT: Press TV Censors Ahmad Khatami? Surely not, but the website curiously omits any mention of Khatami’s warning to Iranian protesters and the call for all to choose the side of the Supreme Leader (see 1250 and 1645 GMT). Instead, the entire report is “Cleric Says Iran Nuclear Case Important ‘Test’”. Read the rest of this entry »
Enduring America’s Mr Smith, who has first-hand sources and knowledge of Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, the physicist killed yesterday in the explosion of a booby-trapped motorcycle, assesses the consequences of the murder:
The murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi adds yet another mystery to the litany of violence, unexplained circumstances, and unpredictable twists that Iran has been witnessing since June 12.
Ali-Mohammadi was a mild-mannered academic who, like most of his colleagues, quietly supported reformist leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the run-up to the presidential vote and who became more vocal in its aftermath. However, his association with physics — he was among the very first scholars to emerge from the Islamic Republic’s universities with a Ph.D., made it easy for state media to link him to the nuclear field and for Western news organisations and Israeli analysts to quickly claim he was active in the nuclear programme of Iran. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re watching carefully the reported ban on the activities of Iran’s leading reformist political party, Islamic Iran Participation Party (Mosharekat).
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